I put the opening to my main WIP here a few months back, and the start of ch1 was generally well-received. But every time I read through it, I angst over it. It's the only part of the book I keep fiddling with, and I think I've realised why. I think I'm rebelling against the artifice of the careful drip, drip of information, to introduce the characters (but not too many at once!) and set up the situation and hint at the world. It feels like a complex painting-by-numbers rather than getting a brushful of paint and slapping it around on a canvas.
I wondered whether it might work to just slice off the first few pages, ignore set-up and hope the reader is interested enough by the opening action to want to catch up on background later.
So, here's the start of where most readers seem to think the story really takes off. But does it work as an opening? And if so, is there any vital information missing, or anything I need to expand on at this stage to keep the reader getting hopelessly lost?
Any other comments would be great too, thanks.
**************************
They swam to a point above the ziggurat’s doorway. Orc could just make it out, seventy feet deep, in the north face of the step-temple’s lowest tier. He called across to Ranga in the sailboat to time his breathe-up, and Cass held him from behind, finning gently to keep his face out of the water. Limp in her arms, trying not to focus on the feel of her holding him and quickening his skin through his wetsuit, Orc mentally counted out slow, deep breaths. Count of three in, count of six out, while the swell gently lifted and dropped him, and the sun burnt down, and ten yards away the fishing boat rocked with the soft slap of water …
‘Eight minutes!’ called Ranga.
‘Ready?’ said Cass.
‘Hmm,’ he exhaled, and carried on exhaling. He forced himself empty till his chest hurt, then breathed in long, and long, and long, and Cass released him. He ducked his head under, brought his feet up and drove himself into the dive that might be the most important of his life.
A clean start, no thrashing at the surface: he finned smoothly down into the silence, one hand constantly pinching his nose through his mask so he could pressurise his ears. The mounting weight of water pushed his stomach wall against his compacting lungs, squeezed his mask against his face until he spent a quick snort of air to restore the balance. Buoyancy faded along with light and colour. He slowed his kicks to save energy. The ziggurat’s lowest tier resolved from blue murk as he glided down. Schools of pale fish lazily spread to let him fall through.
Just short of the seabed, he stalled his descent with a swipe of his fins. With his weight-belt countering the squeezed air in his lungs, he hung motionless before the doorway. Its massive stones were carved with serpents and leaves and corn-stalks: eroded outside, but clearer just within the long passageway, before it turned black.
An entrance to thousands of years of lost history — and to the Otherworld. It was dangerous to think in such terms, but he needed to be on the edge of that world to get the help he needed. He touched the hollow of his throat, felt the jagged little lump of his focus-stone beneath the pliancy of his wetsuit. And if he was lucky, then after a whole summer of searching, this would be the ziggurat that held its much larger cousin, the focus-stone that would change his and Cass’s lives.
He pressed the crystal against his skin — Right, Otter, let’s go — and opened himself to his animath, holding in his mind the creature’s ability to swim into dark places and still see. As he felt the shift in his spine and muscles, the blackness of the passageway softened. He kicked through the doorway into suddenly colder water, keeping close to the ceiling to avoid disturbing the silt. Inwards, and inwards, and as the yards passed he began to sense a presence around him, and it grew as he went deeper: the nearness of the large focus-stone, it had to be. The dimness ahead brightened. The wall-carvings became visible again, no longer natural shapes but spirals, lines, zigzags. Tension gripped his diaphragm as he neared the end of the passage, the niggling urge to breathe mounting with his excitement and dread.
The passageway opened into the central chamber: twenty feet each side, feebly lit by distant daylight coming down through the shaft in the centre of its pitched ceiling. And its floor —
Crap. It was bare, no sign even of the hole Ranga’s source had mentioned. No gold, and no stone.
He pushed away disappointment. No time for it. There might still be the usual artefacts, and they badly needed something to sell. Lungs already burning, he finned towards the shaft opening. For a moment he saw blood dripping from it, but he shook the image off. Invoking Otter opened himself to other things, too; he had to keep his mind together. But the sense of presence he’d felt in the passageway was stronger now. And if it wasn’t the stone, then what? It felt different, aware of him: a scrutiny, old as the thousands of tons that penned him in, and weighted with malice …
Stop it.
Beneath the shaft, he glanced up. At the top, the surface glittered between the crossed bars of the stone grille. The nearness of air caught at him, but the grille would make it a cage of death. Relax. Searching just within the shaft, his hand found the usual hole on one side. He pulled his head and shoulders into the shaft and reached in.
The first contraction spasmed through his abdomen, his body urging him to breathe.
Relax. Relax.
He groped, caught something.
A shadow fell. He jerked his face up. A body had fallen across the grille, and from it rained blood.
No — he refused the image, and the body was gone, the light returned. Ghosts or his imagination, they were strong here. But the scare had raced his heart. He pulled out the cup he’d found: not much larger than his hand, black with tarnish but whole. Silver.
His diaphragm buckled again. He needed to breathe now. He ducked out of the shaft and turned, ready to kick towards the passage; then his neck prickled and he glanced to the side and —
A face.
A woman’s face staring teeth sharp in the murk and something uncoiling —
His air almost blew. He fixed his eyes on the exit passage and kicked. But got nowhere. He worked his legs madly, and now felt it: the rope of muscle around his ankle. Holding him. Just imagination, had to be, but — his diaphragm convulsed — he couldn’t move. Panic clawed him. Submit, came a voice in his head, let me have you.
He struck with his right fin towards his left ankle, felt it hit. The hold loosened; he kicked with all he had and shot forward, free. His diaphragm buckled again as he powered into the passage; and again it contracted, and again after a few more yards, his insides squirming and twisting with need. Ahead, the bright entrance, the open depths — then a seventy-foot ascent; it would take seconds, he could make it. But every moment was pain and his legs were draining of strength; his fins crashed against the walls.
Let me take you.
The backs of his legs scraped the doorway lintel as he swam out into the open. Glittering high above was his next breath, but he had no buoyancy and no strength; his blood was exhausted and his thighs burned with acid. He kicked and it was feeble; another contraction punched through him, then he was grabbed again —
But under his arms. He was rising.
He held on through the agony of the stale poison in his chest, held on with everything. Cass’s legs beat against his as she finned, but hers were strong and fresh and the seabed faded below. Orc’s contractions came faster. His vision tunnelled into black. He fought against the approaching faint, and the surface rushed and he crashed into purple sky and — air!
‘Breathe!’ shouted Cass in his ear. ‘Breathe!’
He forced his lungs to work. Blackness dragged at him, but he sank mental claws into the distant coast and the feel of Cass holding him, refused to let them go.
‘Get out!’ he croaked as soon as he could. ‘Something down there!’
‘It’s okay, you’re safe.’ Cass turned him to face her. ‘God, your lips are blue.’
‘Get out, come on!’ He hardly knew what he was saying.
‘You’re safe, calm down.’ She kept finning, holding him up. ‘What happened? Was it the one?’
He shook his head. He put his masked face in the water, heartbeat mad with dread, but saw no sign of pursuit. A fog of silt had risen to hide the doorway.
I wondered whether it might work to just slice off the first few pages, ignore set-up and hope the reader is interested enough by the opening action to want to catch up on background later.
So, here's the start of where most readers seem to think the story really takes off. But does it work as an opening? And if so, is there any vital information missing, or anything I need to expand on at this stage to keep the reader getting hopelessly lost?
Any other comments would be great too, thanks.
**************************
They swam to a point above the ziggurat’s doorway. Orc could just make it out, seventy feet deep, in the north face of the step-temple’s lowest tier. He called across to Ranga in the sailboat to time his breathe-up, and Cass held him from behind, finning gently to keep his face out of the water. Limp in her arms, trying not to focus on the feel of her holding him and quickening his skin through his wetsuit, Orc mentally counted out slow, deep breaths. Count of three in, count of six out, while the swell gently lifted and dropped him, and the sun burnt down, and ten yards away the fishing boat rocked with the soft slap of water …
‘Eight minutes!’ called Ranga.
‘Ready?’ said Cass.
‘Hmm,’ he exhaled, and carried on exhaling. He forced himself empty till his chest hurt, then breathed in long, and long, and long, and Cass released him. He ducked his head under, brought his feet up and drove himself into the dive that might be the most important of his life.
A clean start, no thrashing at the surface: he finned smoothly down into the silence, one hand constantly pinching his nose through his mask so he could pressurise his ears. The mounting weight of water pushed his stomach wall against his compacting lungs, squeezed his mask against his face until he spent a quick snort of air to restore the balance. Buoyancy faded along with light and colour. He slowed his kicks to save energy. The ziggurat’s lowest tier resolved from blue murk as he glided down. Schools of pale fish lazily spread to let him fall through.
Just short of the seabed, he stalled his descent with a swipe of his fins. With his weight-belt countering the squeezed air in his lungs, he hung motionless before the doorway. Its massive stones were carved with serpents and leaves and corn-stalks: eroded outside, but clearer just within the long passageway, before it turned black.
An entrance to thousands of years of lost history — and to the Otherworld. It was dangerous to think in such terms, but he needed to be on the edge of that world to get the help he needed. He touched the hollow of his throat, felt the jagged little lump of his focus-stone beneath the pliancy of his wetsuit. And if he was lucky, then after a whole summer of searching, this would be the ziggurat that held its much larger cousin, the focus-stone that would change his and Cass’s lives.
He pressed the crystal against his skin — Right, Otter, let’s go — and opened himself to his animath, holding in his mind the creature’s ability to swim into dark places and still see. As he felt the shift in his spine and muscles, the blackness of the passageway softened. He kicked through the doorway into suddenly colder water, keeping close to the ceiling to avoid disturbing the silt. Inwards, and inwards, and as the yards passed he began to sense a presence around him, and it grew as he went deeper: the nearness of the large focus-stone, it had to be. The dimness ahead brightened. The wall-carvings became visible again, no longer natural shapes but spirals, lines, zigzags. Tension gripped his diaphragm as he neared the end of the passage, the niggling urge to breathe mounting with his excitement and dread.
The passageway opened into the central chamber: twenty feet each side, feebly lit by distant daylight coming down through the shaft in the centre of its pitched ceiling. And its floor —
Crap. It was bare, no sign even of the hole Ranga’s source had mentioned. No gold, and no stone.
He pushed away disappointment. No time for it. There might still be the usual artefacts, and they badly needed something to sell. Lungs already burning, he finned towards the shaft opening. For a moment he saw blood dripping from it, but he shook the image off. Invoking Otter opened himself to other things, too; he had to keep his mind together. But the sense of presence he’d felt in the passageway was stronger now. And if it wasn’t the stone, then what? It felt different, aware of him: a scrutiny, old as the thousands of tons that penned him in, and weighted with malice …
Stop it.
Beneath the shaft, he glanced up. At the top, the surface glittered between the crossed bars of the stone grille. The nearness of air caught at him, but the grille would make it a cage of death. Relax. Searching just within the shaft, his hand found the usual hole on one side. He pulled his head and shoulders into the shaft and reached in.
The first contraction spasmed through his abdomen, his body urging him to breathe.
Relax. Relax.
He groped, caught something.
A shadow fell. He jerked his face up. A body had fallen across the grille, and from it rained blood.
No — he refused the image, and the body was gone, the light returned. Ghosts or his imagination, they were strong here. But the scare had raced his heart. He pulled out the cup he’d found: not much larger than his hand, black with tarnish but whole. Silver.
His diaphragm buckled again. He needed to breathe now. He ducked out of the shaft and turned, ready to kick towards the passage; then his neck prickled and he glanced to the side and —
A face.
A woman’s face staring teeth sharp in the murk and something uncoiling —
His air almost blew. He fixed his eyes on the exit passage and kicked. But got nowhere. He worked his legs madly, and now felt it: the rope of muscle around his ankle. Holding him. Just imagination, had to be, but — his diaphragm convulsed — he couldn’t move. Panic clawed him. Submit, came a voice in his head, let me have you.
He struck with his right fin towards his left ankle, felt it hit. The hold loosened; he kicked with all he had and shot forward, free. His diaphragm buckled again as he powered into the passage; and again it contracted, and again after a few more yards, his insides squirming and twisting with need. Ahead, the bright entrance, the open depths — then a seventy-foot ascent; it would take seconds, he could make it. But every moment was pain and his legs were draining of strength; his fins crashed against the walls.
Let me take you.
The backs of his legs scraped the doorway lintel as he swam out into the open. Glittering high above was his next breath, but he had no buoyancy and no strength; his blood was exhausted and his thighs burned with acid. He kicked and it was feeble; another contraction punched through him, then he was grabbed again —
But under his arms. He was rising.
He held on through the agony of the stale poison in his chest, held on with everything. Cass’s legs beat against his as she finned, but hers were strong and fresh and the seabed faded below. Orc’s contractions came faster. His vision tunnelled into black. He fought against the approaching faint, and the surface rushed and he crashed into purple sky and — air!
‘Breathe!’ shouted Cass in his ear. ‘Breathe!’
He forced his lungs to work. Blackness dragged at him, but he sank mental claws into the distant coast and the feel of Cass holding him, refused to let them go.
‘Get out!’ he croaked as soon as he could. ‘Something down there!’
‘It’s okay, you’re safe.’ Cass turned him to face her. ‘God, your lips are blue.’
‘Get out, come on!’ He hardly knew what he was saying.
‘You’re safe, calm down.’ She kept finning, holding him up. ‘What happened? Was it the one?’
He shook his head. He put his masked face in the water, heartbeat mad with dread, but saw no sign of pursuit. A fog of silt had risen to hide the doorway.
